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Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming

Posted by BRAGGonUT on September 8th, 2008 under Football

My father-in-law, Gary, is a true orange-blooded Texas Longhorn. He is the only child of two graduates of the University of Texas. He graduated from the pharmacy school the year of our last national championship (pre-Vince), married a Longhorn, and raised two daughters – both Texas graduates and both Texas Angels while on campus. He joined the Longhorn Foundation in its inaugural year. In fact, when boosters were still legally allowed to recruit for the university, Gary nailed down Northeast Texas.

Gary hailed from Clarksville, Texas, and returned to Atlanta, Texas after graduation to help run the pharmacy there. In the late 1970’s, he headed to Pittsburg, Texas to run his own pharmacy for 25+ years.

Being from far northeast Texas, Gary knows about the Arkansas Razorbacks. Much to his dismay, he has family that are Arkansas Razorback fans. How could he not? Clarksville is 40 miles from Arkansas and his Longhorn wife is from New BostonBloomberg, Texas which literally straddles the Texas/Arkansas border.

Gary was the first person to tell me stories about the Razorbacks.

By the time I made my pilgrimage to Mecca Austin, the Razorbacks had already bolted to the SEC the prior season. I didn’t grow up in Texas, so I did not grow up following the old SWC fights except from afar. Back then, college football was a much more regional affair. I also was not born when the Game of the Century happened, so I failed even to appreciate the historical significance of the rivalry.

The first taste that I had of Texas-Arkansas rivalry was the Cotton Bowl after the 1999 season. I only remember getting crushed by the Razorbacks after four guys got bounced from the team for failing drug tests. And I remember Houston Nutt dropping the double horns down to his faithful.

height=Even at that point, I didn’t really get the Texas-Arkansas rivalry.

And then prior to the 2003 season in preparation for our home and home series with Arkansas, I bought a book by Terry Frei (also writes for The Denver Post and ESPN.com.) called Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming as a gift for Gary. And like most books I get for Gary, I asked if I could read it first. It is out of print now but you can still read it or buy it at Amazon.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it for any sports fan – but particularly for Texas Longhorn football fans.

MY EDITORIAL NOTE: I also recommend that you check out srr50’s post on his memories of the Texas Arkansas rivalry since he is the only guy I know that attended the first clash in 1894.

The book does a tremendous job of placing the game into its historical context – there were four current or future US presidents in the stands that day with the political backdrop of the Vietnam War protests on the campus and the societal unrest relating to segregation. These two teams were both exclusively white and his subtitle is appropriately Dixie’s Last Stand.


President Richard Nixon, Arkansas Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt, and Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller with Texas Congressman, George Bush. If you look real hard in the row behind them, you can spot the top of Henry Kissinger’s head and his glasses.

But even better than that was the thorough examination of the Big Shootout from a football perspective. He profiles and interviews virtually every starter on both teams including some of their recruiting stories, and breaks down the Arkansas defensive plan to try to stop James Street’s wishbone attack.

Frei also tells the tale of the legendary Longhorn Freddie Steinmark in great detail. I was literally drawn to tears. Frei actually went to the same high school as Steinmark.

I bring this book up for obvious reasons. It is Arkansas week, and this book chronicles the greatest game between these one-time rivals.

I mentioned my story about the book and my father-in-law for another reason. During this week’s game, Texas is honoring #22 Bobby Layne. Gary’s dad’s favorite Longhorn player was Bobby Layne, and as a result, he gave his son the middle name ‘Layne’. And Gary gave one of his daughters ‘Layne’ as her middle name. And to me, that is what Longhorn football is about – sharing special people, places, and memories with family and friends.

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13 Responses

  1. BRAGGonUT said:

    September 8th, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    Here is the narrative from the front and back flaps of the book:

    On December 6, 1969, the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks met in what many consider the Game of the Century. In the centennial season of college football, both teams were undefeated; both featured devastating and innovative offenses; both boasted cerebral, stingy defenses; and both were coached by superior tacticians and stirring motivators, Texas’s Darrell Royal and Arkansas’s Frank Broyles. On that day in Fayetteville, the poll-leading Horns and second-ranked Hogs battled for the Southwest Conference title — and President Nixon was coming to present his own national championship plaque to the winners.

    Even if it had been just a game, it would still have been memorable today. The bitter rivals played a game for the ages before a frenzied, hog-callin’ crowd that included not only an enthralled President Nixon — a noted football fan — but also Texas congressman George Bush. And the game turned, improbably, on an outrageously daring fourth-down pass.

    But it wasn’t just a game, because nothing was so simple in December 1969. In Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming, Terry Frei deftly weaves the social, political, and athletic trends together for an unforgettable look at one of the landmark college sporting events of all time.

    The week leading up to the showdown saw black student groups at Arkansas, still marginalized and targets of virulent abuse, protesting and seeking to end the use of the song “Dixie” to celebrate Razorback touchdowns; students were determined to rush the field during the game if the band struck up the tune. As the United States remained mired in the Vietnam War, sign-wielding demonstrators (including war veterans) took up their positions outside the stadium — in full view of the president. That same week, Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton penned a letter to the head of the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, thanking the colonel for shielding him from induction into the military earlier in the year.

    Finally, this game was the last major sporting event that featured two exclusively white teams. Slowly, inevitably, integration would come to the end zones and hash marks of the South, and though no one knew it at the time, the Texas vs. Arkansas clash truly was Dixie’s Last Stand.

    Drawing from comprehensive research and interviews with coaches, players, protesters, professors, and politicians, Frei stitches together an intimate, electric narrative about two great teams — including one player who, it would become clear only later, was displaying monumental courage just to make it onto the field — facing off in the waning days of the era they defined. Gripping, nimble, and clear-eyed, Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming is the final word on the last of how it was.

  2. srr50 said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 3:41 am

    Frank Broyles has said that he never watched the game film — it was just too painful. And as close as he and Darrell Royal are they have never talked about that game in any detail.

    One of my favorite memories of that game is the pep rally at Memorial Stadium before the team left. 37,000 people on hand making a helluva lot of noise.

    Allsome.

  3. RFourie said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 4:02 am

    I second the recommendation of this book; just a fantastic read for a Horns fan. To put in perspective just how big this game was, I was 14 years old participating in a high school swim meet in New Jersey, and they announced the score over the PA system. For the football-agnostic northeast, that was a big deal. For those that can’t find it, I was able to check it out of the local library.

  4. DBH said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:00 am

    Thanks for the reminder. I own lots of UT football books, but I had never bought this one for some reason. Just ordered from Amazon.

  5. Spider said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:21 am

    Here’s another good read, or so I’m told, on the game, from Texas’ own Pat Culpepper.

  6. Spider said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:22 am

    Sorry, it’s not on THAT game, but on the rivalry with the hogs. The Arkansas game depicted in “Goal Line” was from 1962.

  7. RomaVicta said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:26 am

    I was in eighth grade in San Antonio. I remember the principal of Eisenhower Jr. High making Friday announcements in the afternoon over the classroom intercom system. At the end, he said:

    All for the Longhorns stand up and holler,
    All you hogs just lay down and waller.

    You could hear cheering and laughing throughout the school.

  8. El General said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:38 am

    Outstanding book. I never realized Street had 6 turnovers in that game. Winning is the best deodorant.

  9. J.R.69 said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 6:40 am

    For that game, my sister, may she rest in peace, had some family and friends over for a football party. To our delight and amazement, she and her husband had rented a section of bleachers (that’s right–bleachers…..three rows high!) and set them up in the den. There was plenty of beer, etc., and we, Longhorn fans all, awaited the slaughter that was at hand. We were supremely confident.

    The Hogs had other ideas, though. They came out sky-high, almost jumping out of their shoes, and played the Horns off their feet. The UT wishbone never really got rolling, and the Horns never did figure out how to deal with Arkie’s swarming, stunting defense.

    By halftime, we were all stunned. By the end of the 3rd quarter we were numb. Also drunk and incredulous and behind 14-0.

    The first play of the 4th quarter saw Street scrambling for a 42-yard score because of a missed block by McKay. This began, with a bang, the comeback that followed. When Street hit Peschel with the 43-yarder, you never heard such yelling and bellowing. The next play, with Koy butting heads with every Arky on the field for 11 yards to the 2-yard line, was, to me, the most under-rated play of the game. The Bertelsen score on the following play was anti-climactic, as was the rest of the game.

    At the end, we were too hoarse, exhausted, and drunk to cheer, we just blubbered like fools. And acted like we knew that was how it was going to end.

    There haven’t been many like that.

  10. Facebook User said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 10:48 am

    Great post, Bragg.

  11. Parlin Hall said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    I’ll buy a lifetime subscription to BC if someone writes the play-by-play for this game as spoken by Henry Kissinger. (Phonetic spellings encouraged).

  12. Old School said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    Y’know what’s allsome about that photo of Nixon, et al.? They’re in the stands, just like everybody else. No luxury boxes, no seat licenses, no Jerry-World private clubs. The President of the Freakin’ US of A is sitting on bleachers just like the ones that I bang my knees against every game at DKR.

    That is how it should be.

  13. BiggUggly said:

    September 9th, 2008 at 7:03 pm

    I was actually there. Went up without a ticket and sat in the middle of Arkansas fans. Lots of hoggies wanted to whip my ass. I guess being big and ugly has its advantages. For three quarters, I froze my ass off. After Slick had the long run, I never thought about the cold again.

    All you hear about the inbreds is true. They refused to sell us gasoline or food.

    A side note! I should have died that night. I was the only one still conscious (barely) so I drove (and drank)all he way back to Dallas. We came within a split second oh a head-on with an 18 wheeler.

    A great sadness overcomes me whenever I watch a replay and see Jose (A Horny Mex can) Pena cartwheeling across the field after Peschel’s reception.

    I am so thankful that after many years of pansy-assed, make believe fans, we are once again developing hell-raising replacements for The Wild Bunch.

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